Porcupine Freedom Festival

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Porcupine Freedom Festival
Entrance to Roger's Family Camping Resort and Motel - Welcome Porcfest 2015 - Lancaster, New Hamsphire, USA.png
VenueRoger's Campground
Location(s) Lancaster, New Hampshire
Country United States
Founded2004
Most recentJune 19–25, 2023

The Porcupine Freedom Festival, commonly known as PorcFest, is an event held annually every June since 2004 in the U.S. state of New Hampshire. The festival is the main event held by the Free State Project, a libertarian organization that advocates for the relocation of libertarians to New Hampshire in order to make the state a stronghold for their movement. The festival has been described as "the libertarian version of Burning Man" [1] and "the largest gathering of libertarians in the world". [2] The festival on average hosts approximately 1,500 attendees. [3]

Contents

Background

RussBaker-2015FreeStateProject.png
Lenore Skenazy, speaking.jpg
Russ Baker and Lenore Skenazy speaking at PorcFest in 2015.

The Free State Project originated from a 2001 essay by then-Yale University student (and later lecturer at Dartmouth College) Jason Sorens. The idea behind the project is to get 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire, a state with a low population where a group of that size could yield significant political influence. [1] By 2014, about 1,500 libertarians had already moved to the state, and several "Free Staters" have been elected to the state government, including Andrew Prout of the New Hampshire House of Representatives. [4] The Free State Project hosts two annual events in the state: The New Hampshire Liberty Forum, a convention-style event, and the Porcupine Freedom Festival, which is a weeklong event held at a campground in Lancaster, New Hampshire. [5]

History

The festival began in 2004, [6] one year after New Hampshire was selected as the target state for the Free State Project. [5] [7] The festival is named after the porcupine, which serves as a mascot for the Free State Movement. [7]

The festival is known for its embrace of cryptocurrencies and precious metals over Federal Reserve Notes, [8] as most vendors accept cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, and Dogecoin. [1] In 2013, Vitalik Buterin, the creator of the cryptocurrency Ethereum, attended the 2013 PorcFest along with Erik Voorhees, an early embracer of Bitcoin and a member of the Free State Project. [9] A 2011 episode of Planet Money discussed the prevalence of forges at the festival for the purposes of working precious metals (silver in the case of the episode) into smaller units for sales transactions. [10]

The event in 2020, held during the COVID-19 pandemic, [11] attracted over 1,000 attendees. [12] Jeffrey Tucker of the American Institute for Economic Research gave a presentation at the festival wherein he argued against the COVID-19 lockdowns. [11]

The event in 2021, for the first time since 2004, was a sold out event. [13] [14] It sold out again in 2022. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Free State Project</span> Libertarian political migration

The Free State Project (FSP) is an American political migration movement founded in 2001 to recruit at least 20,000 libertarians to move to a single low-population state in order to make the state a stronghold for libertarian ideas. The New Hampshire Union Leader reports that the Free State Project is not a political party but a nonprofit organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lancaster, New Hampshire</span> Town in New Hampshire, United States

Lancaster is a town located along the Connecticut River in Coös County, New Hampshire, United States. The town is named after the city of Lancaster in England. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 3,218, the second largest in the county after Berlin. It is the county seat of Coos County and gateway to the Great North Woods Region of the state. Lancaster, which includes the villages of Grange and South Lancaster, is home to Weeks State Park and the Lancaster Fair. Part of the White Mountain National Forest is in the eastern portion. The town is part of the Berlin, NH−VT Micropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeffrey Tucker</span> American libertarian writer and advocate

Jeffrey Albert Tucker is an American libertarian writer, publisher, entrepreneur and advocate of anarcho-capitalism and Bitcoin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Hampshire Liberty Forum</span> Free State Project annual conference

The New Hampshire Liberty Forum is an annual convention-style conference hosted by the Free State Project. It has attracted attendees such as U.S. presidential candidates, a sitting U.S. senator, a sitting U.S. representative, state legislators, well-known businesspersons, entrepreneurs, and numerous policy institutes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cryptocurrency</span> Digital currency not reliant on a central authority

A cryptocurrency, crypto-currency, or crypto is a digital currency designed to work as a medium of exchange through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. It is a decentralized system for verifying that the parties to a transaction have the money they claim to have, eliminating the need for traditional intermediaries, such as banks, when funds are being transferred between two entities.

Litecoin is a decentralized peer-to-peer cryptocurrency and open-source software project released under the MIT/X11 license. Inspired by Bitcoin, Litecoin was among the earliest altcoins, starting in October 2011. In technical details, the Litecoin main chain shares a slightly modified Bitcoin codebase. The practical effects of those codebase differences are lower transaction fees, faster transaction confirmations, and faster mining difficulty retargeting. Due to its underlying similarities to Bitcoin, Litecoin has historically been referred to as the "silver to Bitcoin's gold." In 2022, Litecoin added optional privacy features via soft fork through the MWEB upgrade.

Coinbase Global, Inc., branded Coinbase, is an American publicly traded company that operates a cryptocurrency exchange platform. Coinbase is a distributed company; all employees operate via remote work. It is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States by trading volume. The company was founded in 2012 by Brian Armstrong and Fred Ehrsam. In May 2020, Coinbase announced it would shut its San Francisco, California headquarters and change operations to remote-first, part of a wave of several major tech companies closing headquarters in San Francisco in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dogecoin</span> Cryptocurrency

Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency created by software engineers Billy Markus and Jackson Palmer, who decided to create a payment system as a "joke", making fun of the wild speculation in cryptocurrencies at the time. It is considered both the first "meme coin", and more specifically the first "dog coin". Despite its satirical nature, some consider it a legitimate investment prospect. Dogecoin features the face of the Shiba Inu dog from the "doge" meme as its logo and namesake. It was introduced on December 6, 2013, and quickly developed its own online community, reaching a peak market capitalization of over US$85 billion on May 5, 2021. As of 2021, it is the sleeve sponsor of Watford Football Club.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Sorens</span> American political scientist

Jason Sorens is a Senior Research faculty member for the American Institute for Economic Research also known as, AIER. Previously, Sorens served as director of the Center for Ethics in Society at St. Anselm College and prior to his work with St. Anselm, Sorens was a lecturer in the department of government at Dartmouth College. He has been an affiliated scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University since 2008. His primary research interests include fiscal federalism, public policy in federal systems, secessionism, and ethnic politics. Sorens received his B.A. in economics and philosophy, with honors, from Washington and Lee University and his PhD in political science from Yale University. He is the founder of the Free State Project and president of Ethics & Economics Education of New England, an effort to boost ethical and economic literacy in New England through programs for high schoolers, opinion leaders, and the general public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carla Gericke</span> American writer, activist, and lawyer (born 1972)

Carla Gericke is an author, activist, and attorney. Born in South Africa, she immigrated to the United States in the 1990s after winning a green card in the Diversity Visa Lottery. She became a U.S. citizen in 2000. Gericke practiced law in South Africa, and California, working at Apple Computer, Borland, Logitech, and Scient Corporation. Gericke is President Emeritus of the Free State Project. In 2014, she won a landmark First Circuit Court of Appeals case that affirmed the First Amendment right to film police officers. That same year, she was named one of New Hampshire Magazine's "2014 Remarkable Women" In 2016, Gericke ran as a Republican for New Hampshire State Senate in District 20 against Democrat Lou D'Allesandro, garnering 40% of the vote in the general election. In 2018, after a successful recount on a write-in campaign on the Libertarian Party's ballot, she ran as a fusion Republican/Libertarian candidate and received 42% of the vote, up two percentage points in a year when District 20 swung 12–15% left due to the "Blue Wave." In 2020, Gericke ran again against D'Allesandro in District 20 and again lost, this time by a vote tally of 13,548 to 10,479, or approximately 56–44%.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Ammon</span> American politician

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jeremy Kauffman</span> American entrepreneur

Jeremy Kauffman is an American entrepreneur and political activist known for founding and leading the blockchain-based filesharing project LBRY. Kauffman is also known as a vocal supporter and activist within the Free State Project (FSP) and a former board member. The FSP is a movement designed to get libertarians to move to the state of New Hampshire. Kauffman was the Libertarian nominee in the 2022 United States Senate election in New Hampshire, losing to Democrat Maggie Hassan.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Terris, Ben (July 2, 2014). "Inside the libertarian version of Burning Man: Guns, booze and bitcoin". The Washington Post . ISSN   0190-8286. Archived from the original on July 5, 2014. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  2. ↑ Harper, Jennifer (June 11, 2016). "PorcFest, 'largest gathering of libertarians in the world,' to meet in New Hampshire". The Washington Times . Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  3. ↑ Ronayne, Kathleen (June 24, 2016). "Free Staters Host 'PorcFest'". Valley News . Newspapers of New England, Inc. Associated Press. Archived from the original on August 30, 2016. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  4. ↑ Reed, Nathaniel (June 24, 2019). "Libertarians gather for 16th annual PorcFest". WPTZ . Archived from the original on November 8, 2020. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  5. 1 2 Quimby, Taylor (April 12, 2018). "You Asked, We Answered: What Is The Free State Project?". New Hampshire Public Radio . Archived from the original on October 9, 2020. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  6. ↑ Eha, Brian Patrick (2017). How Money Got Free: Bitcoin and the Fight for the Future of Finance. Simon & Schuster. ISBN   978-1-78074-659-3 – via Google Books.
  7. 1 2 Hill, Kashmir (June 12, 2014). "The Free State Project: A Libertarian Testing Ground For Bitcoin, 3D Printers, and Drones". Forbes . Archived from the original on November 13, 2020. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  8. ↑ Moody, Chris (July 10, 2015). "The movement to free New Hampshire". CNN . Archived from the original on July 7, 2019. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  9. ↑ Leising, Matthew (2020). Out of the Ether: The Amazing Story of Ethereum and the $55 Million Heist that Almost Destroyed It All. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. p. 59. ISBN   978-1-119-60295-8 – via Google Books.
  10. ↑ "Episode 286: Libertarian Summer Camp". NPR . July 5, 2013. Archived from the original on August 3, 2017. Retrieved November 13, 2020.
  11. 1 2 Tucker, Jeffrey A. (June 29, 2020). "Broadway Closed but Porcfest Stayed Open". American Institute for Economic Research . Archived from the original on October 13, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  12. ↑ Hayes, Paul (June 28, 2020). "Left, Right Outrage Meet At PorcFest". The Caledonian-Record . Archived from the original on September 21, 2020. Retrieved November 12, 2020.
  13. ↑ Carroll, William (June 29, 2021). "Porcfest breaks attendance record". Manchester Ink Link. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  14. ↑ Gericke, Carla (June 28, 2021). "Sold-Out, Historic, Legendary PorcFest 2021: A Smashing Success Story of Peace Over Coercion (Part 1)". Carla Gericke. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  15. ↑ "Porcfest 2022 (XIX) Tickets". PorcFest. Retrieved August 30, 2022.

Further reading

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